THE SUMMER DUCK. 207 



yellow; belly, vent and under tail-coverts white, flanks 

 and thighs dull brown. 



The young males of the first season are scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable from the ducks. 



The Summer Duck breeds, in New York and New 

 Jersey, according to the season, from early in April until 

 late in May ; in July the young birds are not much infe- 

 rior in size to the parents, though not yet very strong on 

 the wing. I well remember on one occasion, during the 

 second week of that month, in the year 1836, while out 

 woodcock shooting near "Warwick, in Orange county, 

 New York, with a steady brace of setters, how some 

 mowers who were at work on the banks of the beautiful 

 Wawayanda, hailed me, and, pointing to a patch of per- 

 haps two acres of coarse, rushy grass, told me that six 

 ducks had just gone down there. I called my dogs to 

 heel, and walked very gingerly through the meadow, 

 with finger on the trigger, expecting the birds to rise 

 very wild ; but to my great surprise reached the end of 

 the grass, on the rivulet's njargin, without moving any 

 thing. 



The men still persisted that the birds were there ; and 

 so they were, sure enough ; for on bidding my setters 

 hold up, I soon got six dead points in the grass, and not 

 without some trouble kicked up the birds, so hard did 

 they lay. It was a calm, bright summer's day, not a 

 duck rose above ten feet from me, and I bagged them all. 

 They proved to be the old duck and five young birds of 



